


all the broken happy ever afters

by skywalking-across-the-galaxy (BadWolfGirl01)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet, Canon Compliant, Clones, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I don't know how to tag this, Post-Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, mostly?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadWolfGirl01/pseuds/skywalking-across-the-galaxy
Summary: After the fall of the second Death Star, after the death of Darth Sidious, after the stretched-thin, tightly shielded training bond finally snaps - that is when Ahsoka Tano finds Rex again, in the ashes of the Galactic Empire.[or: Rex and Ahsoka, and the search for Cody]





	all the broken happy ever afters

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from "What About Us", which is a fantastic clone song!
> 
> I wrote and posted this entirely on my phone, so any errors are probably a result of that.

After the fall of the second Death Star, after the death of Darth Sidious, after the stretched-thin, tightly shielded training bond finally snaps - that is when Ahsoka Tano finds Rex again, in the ashes of the Galactic Empire.

She's not there on Endor, when the last battle is fought, but he is. She knows because she'd felt the training bond snap, Anakin gone after all these years, and a few hours later he'd just  _ been there, _ in front of her, her Master - and Obi-Wan too, outlined in a blue glow almost like a holo, but deeper, richer, echoing with power.  _ Look at you, Snips, _ he'd said, all awed,  _ you've grown up. _

_ You haven't, _ she says, because he's his old self again, looks exactly the way she remembers him, the last time he was  _ Anakin, _ long hair and dark robes and scar curving around his eye.

His face goes dark.  _ I've changed more than I want to admit, _ he says, and Obi-Wan looks at him, and there's a second of silence, and then:  _ Luke did it, you know. He brought me back. Padmè would be proud of him. _

_ She'd be proud of you, too, Master, _ Ahsoka says, quiet. She can almost feel him again, like all this - the Order, the Empire, the war - was just some dark dream, like if she wakes herself up she'll be back on board the _ Resolute _ with her men or in the Jedi Temple. She won't be, of course, there's no going back, and the galaxy will never be the way it was when she was a padawan. But it's nice to pretend, for a moment.

_ Maybe. _ Anakin pauses, then says,  _ Rex was there. _

Rex.

_ I'm not surprised, _ she says. And she's not. When she'd brought Rex back into the fight, she'd known he'd see it through to the bitter end. She's missed him.

_ He was thinking about you. _

She doesn't ask how Anakin knows.

There isn't much more talk, although Obi-Wan tells her some about Luke - they fade away with a promise to be back, and then Ahsoka is, as she so often has been since leaving the Jedi Order so long ago, alone.

 

She finds Rex on Seelos, of course, after - she lands her shuttle and lowers the ramp and steps out and he's  _ there, _ on the upper balcony, with Wolffe. She smiles up at him, and he _ stares, _ for a minute, and that's when she remembers she never _ did _ tell him she wasn't dead.

“Hey, Rexter,” she calls up, waving a little, and Rex looks from her to Wolffe, like he doesn't even believe his eyes.

She sees the moment it hits him, that this is _ real, _ because his eyes narrow and he makes for the staircase leading down to the ground, snapping out, “Ahsoka  _ kriffing _ Tano, you could've told me you weren't dead.”

“Nice to see you too,” she says, light, waiting for him to cross over to her - he stops a meter or so away, watching her, and she forces herself not to close the distance just yet. “I couldn't have,” she explains, more serious. “Ezra unlocked a powerful Force world, that's the only reason I'm alive - it was at some point in the future, I wasn't sure when, and I had to be careful. I couldn't risk the Empire finding out I was still alive.”

Rex's face is unreadable, and he nods, sighs, “I know. But- you didn't have to see me, I just… It would've been nice to know I didn't need to say your name.”

She understands. The list of his lost and gone brothers is long enough without having to add _ every _ Jedi he served with to it. “I  _ am _ sorry,” she says, soft. “I missed you.”

Like the words are a cue, Rex steps forward and folds her into his arms, and she presses her face into his neck, feels him tilt his head against her montrals. He lets out a long, slow breath, and she can _ feel _ him relaxing, and it draws the tension out of her, and the Force is _ singing _ with warmth and life and Light.

She closes her eyes, wraps her arms tight around his chest, and lets herself _ breathe. _

_ “Cyare,” _ Rex murmurs, pulling her even closer, and she pulls back enough she can lean in and kiss him.

_ Force, _ it's been too long.

“I missed you,” she repeats, leaning her forehead against his.

“I love you,” he says.

“Are you sure?” she chuckles, and he leans down and kisses her fierce, pulls back to brush his nose against hers.

_ “Ner mesh'la jetii,” _ he almost growls, arms tightening around her.

“Should I leave you two alone?” Wolffe hollers down, and Ahsoka can't help dissolving into laughter.

“Wouldn't mind if you did,” Rex calls back.

Wolffe says something, too-fast Mando'a that Ahsoka can't make out, and then Rex returns his attention to her and it doesn't matter anymore.

 

“I've been looking for _ vode,” _ Rex explains, later. The two of them are sprawled on her bunk in her ship, Rex tracing lazy spirals on her montrals. “There aren't very many left, but I've saved a few, over the years. Wolffe and Gregor. Ty. None of- of the 501st.”

“Cody?” she asks, softly.

He shakes his head. “Never found him.”

“We will,” she promises, and his eyes sharpen, at that.

“We?”

“Of course. I'm not leaving you this time,” and she runs her fingers through his beard. “You're stuck with me now, old man.”

“I'm not so old,” Rex says, waggles his eyebrows a bit. “Think I just proved that.”

She laughs. “Don't change the subject, this is a  _ serious conversation.” _

“I'm being _ very _ serious,” he says, but he subsides, some. Not much, but some. “What were you saying?”

“I was _ trying _ to tell you that I want to stay with you, help you find your brothers, and _ maybe _ see if we can figure out this whole  _ peacetime _ thing together, but  _ obviously _ you have more important things to be doing.”

Rex _ smirks, _ and she rolls her eyes - which does not at all deter him from saying, “As a matter of fact, I  _ do,” _ and then pausing before adding, “After all, it's been _ seven kriffing years.” _

He does, she decides, have a very good point.

“For the record,” he says, softly, pressing a bristly, bearded kiss to one montral, “I  _ am _ interested in that conversation. I'm just _ more _ interested in my apparently _ not-dead cyare.” _

She has to agree with him there. So: “Fine,” she hums, reaching up to trace her fingers over the lines of his face, deepened by age into unfamiliarity, “but we  _ will _ be continuing this later.”

“Obviously,” Rex says, and then he leans in and kisses her.

 

(An interlude:

Rex is there, on Endor. He fights in the last battle of the Galactic Civil War, just like he fought in the last battle of the Clone Wars, and he is, this time, the _ last. _

The last brother, the last of the 501st, one of the very few who remembers the galaxy as it  _ was, _ before Palpatine's betrayal.

And he is the last of- of _ them, _ of her and him, and somehow he'd never imagined he'd outlive his Jedi (both of them, but her especially), not him, just an old clone adrift in an uncaring galaxy.

It's been seven years.

He used to dream of her, of her being _ alive, _ coming back to him, because he's lost her before but she always finds him again, even when half the galaxy and a tribe of bloodthirsty sport hunters was between them - but after the first year, he had to stop, to shove away all his memories of her blue, blue eyes (sparkling like the sun off  Kamino's oceans) deep down into the furthest corners of his mind, where he wouldn't see them anymore. It _ hurt _ too much any other way.

_ I should have ordered you to take me along. _

There are bonfires, and a feast, and music, and _ Luke karking Skywalker, _ the General's _ son, _ and for a moment when Rex first sees Luke, with his General's astromech, he almost thinks- for a moment he sees his General again, laughing over his success with some crazy-ass plan the Council and everyone said could _ never _ work, and-

He likes Luke. But he can't look at the kid.

There's dancing, too, and he ignores that for as long as he can until he can't anymore, and then he can't look away.

_ Come _ **_on,_ ** _ Rexter, dance with me, please? _ She's laughing and beaming up at him and _ little gods _ she's beautiful, his Jedi, but he doesn't dance. He's a  _ clone. _ Clones don't dance, and not with- with their Jedi Commanders.

So he just shakes his head and says  _ You go, sir, I'll watch, _ and he pretends he doesn't see the aching disappointment on her face.

She's laughing and free and it makes his throat burn, watching her, and Fives tries to push him into the dancing but he refuses, puts Fives on KP for being a pushy asshole. Cody just comes up next to him and hands him a drink, and they stand and drink together, and Rex pretends he doesn't- doesn't want what he can't have.  _ Her. _

_ I'd dance with you as much as you want, ner'jetii, _ he thinks, now, watching the laughing figures of the surviving Rebels,  _ if only you'd just come  _ **_back._ **

But she is _ gone, _ his ‘Soka, and she will never come back.)

 

They spend two days on Seelos, helping Wolffe, and then it's time to go exploring; Ahsoka offers Wolffe a ride to wherever in the galaxy he wants to go, but he refuses, saying Seelos is his _ home, _ now.

She understands.

Rex moves his stuff onto her shuttle, and it doesn't take long to get into hyperspace; they sit down in the small galley on board and Ahsoka makes caf, and then they talk.

Rex tells her about the first _ vod _ he'd rescued, over twenty years ago now. “His name was Flicker, 104th, part of the Wolfpack,” he says, quietly, staring into his mug. “I'd managed to reprogram a medical droid, had it get his chip out.”

“What happened?” she asks, because he's gone silent, staring into the depths of his caf like there's a memory there, playing on a holo only he can see.

“He was directly involved with shooting down General Plo,” he says, slowly. “I didn't know - if I had, maybe I would've restrained him, or something. But I didn't, and he-” Rex's voice cracks, just a little, and she goes around the table to sit next to him, sliding an arm around his shoulders. He leans into her gratefully. “He ate his blaster. They always try it, I have to- have to be careful.”

Some of them, he tells her, were able to survive. Some-

“I found Bly,” he says, quiet. “He'd been in love with General Secura for the longest time, I don't know if anything ever came out of it, but- when we got the Order, he shot her. I tried to save him, but in the end, it was… it was more merciful to let him do it. He was already dying from the grief and the guilt.” He's choked up and she hugs him tighter, wonders if he'd imagined having to shoot her. (He doesn't tell her about the nightmares right then, but later, later, when he wakes up screaming.)

“Cody won't be that way,” she promises, although she really doesn't know. Because Cody had loved Obi-Wan in his own way, like brothers, and Obi-Wan had been presumed dead and had never bothered to correct the Empire.

Rex knows that just as well as she does, though.

“You're right,” Rex says, but she doesn't think he believes it.

Neither does she.

 

He takes her to a cantina on Naboo - one of the worlds she hasn't dared to go in years, out of fear of the Empire - and Anakin.  _ Vader. _ She'd wanted to go see the memorial for Padmè they'd erected in Theed, but it was too dangerous. But not now. Now there is no Empire, and Vader is gone, and so-

Ahsoka leaves flowers at the memorial, weaves together a crown of them and levitates it onto Padmè's stone head, forgetting for a moment where she is. Someone _ gasps, _ and there's a cry: “Mommy, mommy, look! A _ Jedi!” _

She has her saber, the one hidden beneath her civvies, in her hand (unlit) before she can _ think, _ has to force herself to _ breathe. _ It's not a death sentence, now, there's no Empire, but she can't help but listen for the thump of stormtrooper boots.

She hears nothing but the wind sighing through the trees and the mother and child chattering softly and Rex's breathing beside her.

“The war's over,” he says, very soft, and when she looks at him he's easing his blaster back under his jacket.

“It'll never be over,” she murmurs, tucking her saber away, slowly, slowly. “Not for me.”

She doesn't know how to live in a world not torn apart by war.

“Can you show me your lightsaber?” The child is back, and Ahsoka turns around, careful - there's a young girl, half-Twi'lek, half-human, in front of her, the mother a Twi'lek with dark blue skin, hurrying over.

“I'm sorry,” she says, her voice lilting, “she is too young to understand.” Ahsoka thinks the woman saw her flinch.

“It's okay,” she says, quietly, kneels down so she's the same height as the girl, pulls out her lightsaber hilt. “Here, little one.”

_ “Wow,” _ the girl gasps. “I've never _ seen _ a real Jedi before. Daddy's never gonna believe me!” Before Ahsoka can stand up again, the girl _ flings _ her arms around Ahsoka's shoulders, and then runs off again, stubby lekku flopping against her shoulders. “Let's go tell him, mommy!”

The mother smiles apologetically as her daughter drags her away by one hand.

“Not everyone in the galaxy believed the Empire,” Rex says as she stands, and she nods.

Most of the time, that's hard to remember.

From the memorial, they go to the cantina, and there's good food and good drinks and good music and, even better,  _ dancing. _ Ahsoka doesn't expect Rex to dance with her, but to her surprise when she turns to look at him he's already smiling and holding out a hand.

“Dance with me, ‘Soka?”

She can't, doesn't want to, say no.

 

Rex doesn't want to shoot her.

“No, please,” he begs, but the words don't come out - there's no sound, just the soft music of the crickets, Ahsoka standing in front of him, her back to him, staring up at the crown of flowers on Senator Amidala's sculpted hair. “Don't make me, please, I  _ can't!” _

Not her, not his Jedi,  _ anyone _ but her.

She doesn't move when his hand (not him,  _ not him) _ slips his blaster out from under his coat. The metal in his palm says _ safety, _ promises everything will be alright. He wants to _ scream. _

“What's wrong, Rex?” she murmurs, still not moving. “What's the threat?”

“Me,” he tries to say, but there's _ nothing, _ no words,  _ oh little gods _ this is going to happen. “Please, ‘Soka!”

She can't _ hear him. _

“Rex?”

She turns, and her blue eyes (blue, like the sky, like his armor, like his General's lightsaber, like everything he's ever loved) are so wide and anxious, and then she sees the blaster and goes very, very still. “Rex, I don't understand,” she whispers, and she doesn't reach for her sabers, why doesn't she, little _ gods _ she just- why isn't she?

His blaster comes up and aims for her heart and she still doesn't move, just says, “Please, put your blaster down, Rex, it's not- this isn't _ you,  _ I don't understand. Why are you doing this?”

He can't _ think. _

He tries to bring his blaster down like she asks, but there's _ no response, _ and he's choking on a silent scream and her face is shifting from confused to _ terrified _ and he's going to do this, he's going to _ kill her, _ and he _ can't, _ please, he doesn't want to,  _ please no. _

“Rex,” she says again, “I love you,  _ please _ don't do this.”

He pulls the trigger.

The blaster barks and the bolt sears into her chest, blue-white and hot and burning, and Rex _ feels _ the impact in his own heart, and she _ gasps _ and staggers and falls back, catches herself on the edge of the memorial, coughing and curling in on herself. And she's panting but she's still staring at him, and she whispers,  _ “Rex,” _ so faint, and he can't, he can't, he can't.

The blaster fires again and again, and she slumps to the ground, and she's still breathing out his name as the blaster finally runs out of charge.

And then, only then, can he stagger on numb legs and collapse next to her, tug her into his lap and bury his face in her montrals and _ sob. _

He wakes up screaming.

“Rex!” Ahsoka is- she's _ here, _ not dead,  _ not dead, _ and he drags in a desperate breath and looks up at her. She's sitting up, leaning over him, those blue eyes _ so _ full of concern, and he doesn't even _ think, _ just reaches out and grabs her and pulls her down onto his chest, clinging so tight. “Ahsoka,  _ ner'jetii,” _ he rasps, closes his eyes and holds on, probably too hard, he's not sure. But she presses closer and splays her hand across his chest, and _ little gods, _ he can't do this.

He fumbles with her chin, tilts her face up and kisses her, because he needs her to be here, to be alive,  _ please, _ feels her respond and that helps, grounds him enough he can let out a shattered sob.

“It's okay, Rex,” she says, very soft, “I'm right here.”

He can't help seeing her broken body lying cold and empty, and she'd  _ trusted him, _ he can't- “I'm sorry,” he gasps out, “I love you, I'm so sorry, I-  _ ‘Soka.” _

“I know,” she soothes, “I've got you, I'm here. Promise.”

_ Gods. _

She holds him until he cries himself out, running her hands across his face, through his beard and down his shoulders, soothing, and then, when his sobs have calmed, she asks, “Do you want to tell me about it?”

He swallows, nods a little, tilts his forehead against hers. “It's- always the same,” he breathes, rasping. “I kill you. Tonight it was- at the memorial.”

_ “Rex,” _ she says, softly, but he's not done.

“You'd think that after twenty-three years it'd stop hurting.” It never does.

Ahsoka kisses him, says, “I'm here,” and he _ knows, _ but it still aches, somewhere deep inside, the fact that he knows what it would feel like to murder her.

“It’s better, waking up with you,” he admits, pressing a series of little kisses across her face - she hums and leans her head into his, hooks one leg around both of his so she can pull him closer. It's distracting, a bit, and he lets it be, because right now he _ needs _ her, his ‘Soka. He traces his fingers across the bands of color on her headtails and montrals, lightly outlines the white markings on her face, basks in the warmth and comfort of her closeness. “I love you,” he whispers.

“I know.” She laughs, a little, leans in and kisses him. “I love you too.”

It will be okay.

 

It's Ahsoka's idea to go to Kamino. One of the last Outer Rim holdouts, the storm-wracked ocean planet is, she thinks, a likely place to find Rex's brothers. It's the closest thing most of them had to a homeworld, after all. Rex agrees, and so they set the coordinates. “We'll go to Tipoca City first,” she says, sipping a mug of caf and watching the stars streak by outside. “Start looking there, maybe see if any of the Kaminoans will talk to us.”

“They'll talk,” Rex growls. “I can be _ very _ persuasive when the situation arises.” He thumps his blasters meaningfully.

She laughs. “I'm hoping we won't need that kind of persuasion, but…” She shrugs.

“I hope we do,” Rex mutters. “It'd be karking satisfying.”

She imagines so.

“There's probably a roster of all the clones still in action somewhere on Coruscant,” she says, considering. “If we don't find anything on Kamino, I could ask Leia and see if she'd be willing to help us look into it.”

“That would be good.”

“I think we'll find something here, though. The Force feels good.”

Rex grins. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

 

They say the Empire has fallen.

That there is a new Jedi, at the head of the Rebellion, leading an army  _ (like the old days, _ some of them who are old enough to remember whisper). No one seems to consider the fact that there cannot be a new Jedi when there are no old Jedi left to train them. 

They call him _ Luke Skywalker. _

It's probably not a coincidence, the name. Everyone _ had  _ known that General Skywalker and Senator Amidala were quite close.

Some of his men are leaving, joining up with the new Republic. He doesn't really care.

It's been a long time since CC-2224 cared about his men.

The orders in his head have been quieter, over the last few years, but he has never forgotten his duty, his loyalty to the Republic- to the _ Empire. _ Things are dimmer, lately. He cannot always remember  _ why _ his duty, but in the end, that does not really matter.  _ Good soldiers follow orders, _ after all.

Part of him thinks he should go after this new Jedi, if the rumors are true, but-

He is so _ tired. _

 

He dreams of Kenobi.

_ Wake up, Cody! _ the familiar-as-breathing voice calls, as though from far away, the words echoing up from the lowest recesses of some deep cavern.

‘24 pushes the voice away, buries it in the darkest, dustiest corners of his memory, along with all the other things he is supposed to forget.

 

It is just him, CC-1010, and CT-5597, these days, who remember. The new forces, the so-called _ stormtroopers, _ in their rows of shiny white armor, they've never _ understood. _ They don't hear the orders. And they are _ weak, _ they are not like his-

Like the clones.

They don't like him, ‘24 knows. He doesn't like them either, so it doesn't wound him, but it _ does _ get frustrating, the way they think he's just outdated and useless.

_ “I _ killed Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he tells them.  _ “Me. _ So until you can match that, you keep your karking mouths shut, you understand? You're all worse than _ shinies.” _

They grumble and complain, but they listen.

They are not like his bro-

The clones.

 

CC-2224 dreams.

_ Wake up, Cody! _

Sometimes, he answers.

_ I am not Cody, old man, and you are dead. _

 

It is on the heels of another wave of defections that the scanners pick up an approaching shuttle.

The Kaminoans listen to ‘24, ‘10, and ‘97 these days, in matters of the military - there are no more trainers, the mandos are long gone, the cloning facilities shut down, and the Kaminoans have never been militarily-minded. It's mostly ‘24 who takes charge. He was, after all, once a Marshal Commander.

‘24 almost doesn't even care about the shuttle, figures maybe it's some of his men realizing what a shit choice defecting is, or maybe it's that new Jedi, the Skywalker kid. If it _ is _ young Skywalker, ‘24 will show him his folly in coming alone. There's still three clones, at least, who are loyal to their training.

He and the other two go to the main landing platform, in full armor - they may have ‘improved’ clone armor for the stormtroopers, but ‘24 still wears his battered old painted phase two. He supposes there's still some sort of sentiment attached to the pieces, although mostly it's just that he thinks the new armor is shit.

He has his blaster rifle out and ready as the ship comes in for a landing, ‘10 and ‘97 behind him, mirroring him. They are all old and experienced enough now to know that whoever is coming to Kamino in a small ship, without announcing themselves, is likely a threat.

He doesn't _ think _ it'll be the Skywalker kid, unless he's even more reckless than his father.

The ship's ramp lowers, and two figures stride down, the one in the other's blind spot, speaking of long familiarity - through the lashing rain it's almost impossible to make out features beyond a long, dark brown cloak and armor.

The cloaked figure shifts, and stops at the end of the ramp, and ‘24 can discern points in their hood, like-

_ Montrals, _ a distant memory whispers.

He has not seen a nonhuman besides the Kaminoans in a very long time.

“Kamino is closed to offworlders,” he says, mildly.

The cloaked figure raises small hands and lowers their hood, just as the armored figure steps into a pool of light. The gold-glow from the landing lights illuminates dark blue paint, drawn into familiar shapes:  _ jaig eyes. _

CT-7567.

'24 does not know what to do.

Then ‘97 snaps out, “Jedi!” and ‘24 looks away from his- from the other clone to the cloaked figure. It takes a moment, even with the warning, to place her - blue and white montrals, orange skin, twin sabers on her belt when the wind blows her cloak back. But place her he does.

Ahsoka Tano.

He brings his blaster up to fire, and perhaps he's paying too much attention to the Jedi, because he doesn't see the stun pulse until it's too late.

He doesn't even have time to shout a warning before darkness comes.

 

The Kaminoans don't take much convincing to let Ahsoka and Rex make use of their medical droids to get the chips out of Cody, Jesse, and Fox. As Rex had predicted, when faced with a lit lightsaber and the business end of a blaster, Kaminoans are _ surprisingly _ compliant. 

It's gratifying, really.

The surgeries don't take a horribly long time, but still, Ahsoka is more than ready to leave by the time they haul the three troopers back to her ship on stretchers. She thinks the Kaminoans are more than happy to get rid of them. She suggests cuffing them, just in case, but Rex shakes his head.

“I don't want them to feel like prisoners,” he says, which makes sense.

She still doesn't trust Cody, especially, not to go for his blaster when he wakes up. So she collects all their weapons, piles them in a corner, and then she and Rex sit down to watch and wait.

 

He dreams.

_ Cody,  _ **_wake up!_ **

The voice is closer than it ever has been before, loud and right in his ear, and there's a _ presence _ behind him, like if he just turns his head, someone will be there.

Cody wakes up.

 

The first thing Cody registers when he opens his eyes is an unfamiliar room, the vibrations humming up through him at least telling him he's on a ship, one that's in hyperspace. He sits up, slowly, looks around, sees two of his _ vode _ laying near him - it's Jesse and Fox, both of them with bandages over their temples. He puts a hand up to his own temple, finds a bandage there too, and frowns.

What the hells?

_ Commander Cody, the time has come. Execute Order Sixty-Six. _

_ It will be done, my lord. _

Oh no. Oh  _ hells, _ little gods, what has he _ done? _

_ It's all-too-easy, he goes on comms and repeats the Order, gestures and they fall in behind him, and he lifts his rifle and aims and fires. And Kenobi falls. _

Oh gods, he-

_ Kenobi is dead, my lord. What are your orders? _

_ Report back to me at once, Commander. There are yet Jedi who are escaping their just punishment. You and your men must go and deliver them. Be my hands in the galaxy. _

_ Yes, my lord. _

“No,” Cody whispers, faintly, staring down at his hands (lined more deeply than they were when they pulled the trigger and killed _ his General, _ but still the same hands). “Oh  _ gods.” _

_ The padawans are dead, my lord. They fought well, and I lost many men to their sabers before we defeated them. _

_ Excellent work, Cody. I have hardly met a more loyal, more skilled trooper anywhere. _

_ You flatter me, my lord. _

_ Perhaps, but it is deserved. _

Oh no. Oh hells, oh _ kriff- _ He fumbles for his blaster but it's _ not there, _ where is it, he- he- he-

_ “Ori'vod,” _ someone says.  _ Rex. _ And then there's a pair of arms around him, holding him _ tight, _ and he doesn't mean to but he flinches away.

“Get away from me,” he snaps out -  _ he aims and he fires and Kenobi falls, a youngling falls, he burns a hole through the young Knight's forehead  _ \- pulling back, fast. “Where's- why did you-”

He shoves himself to his feet, staggers, the floor tilting beneath his feet, and Rex catches him before he falls. “I've got you,  _ ori'vod,” _ he says, and Cody wants to _ cry. _

“I killed him,” he says.

“No,” says- says  _ Commander Tano, _ Ahsoka, and Cody lets Rex help him over to sit down again, stares at her.

“Don't lie to me,” he snarls, barely recognizes his own voice. “I saw him fall.”

“You _ didn't kill him, _ Cody.”

“Shut _ up! _ Just karking-  _ ne'johaa, _ for kriff's sake, sir, it doesn't _ kriffing help!” _ Oh little  _ gods. _

He's crying. The tears are damp and strange and cold on his cheeks.

He can't quite seem to breathe, either.

“You didn't, Cody.” He opens his mouth again, but she's not done. “Anakin did.”

Oh. Oh. Kriffing-

“Vader,” he says, rubs at his eyes. 

She nods.

Gods, gods, gods.

“But I killed- so _ many,” _ he whispers, suddenly has to lean  _ hard _ into Rex's side. His brother's arms are tight and reassuring around him and he chokes, a bit. “Just _ children, _ some of them, I don't-”

He can't.

“It's okay,” Rex says.

“No.” It will _ never _ be okay.

There's a soft gasp, a hitched inhale, and Cody looks over and his _ vod, _ Jesse, is sitting up. And staring at Commander- at Ahsoka. “Sir?”

Cody doesn't think Jesse is breathing either. He's so _ pale, _ like he's seen a ghost.

“Sir, I- I killed you.”

“You did? I feel pretty alive to me,” she says, and Cody starts to laugh.

Somewhere, somehow, it turns into wracking, harsh sobs.

“Twenty-three years,” he chokes out.  _ “You should- kriffing kill me, Rex, I don't-” _ He can't find the words in Basic.

_ “Never gonna happen, Cody, you dumb asshole. I've been looking for you for twenty three karking years, I'm not killing you the instant I've finally found you again.” _

_ “I deserve it.” _

_ “No, you don't,” _ Rex says,  _ “but I forgive you anyway. I gotta go talk to Jesse. You'll be alright, ori'vod.” _

Cody can't quite believe him.

 

Ahsoka trades her ship and some credits for a _ bigger _ ship that can comfortably house four people - only four, because after hearing about Wolffe on Seelos, Fox asked if they could take him there. Rex seems to trust that Fox will be alright, so although Ahsoka is concerned about the old clone (whose first words upon waking up had been  _ why didn't I kill the bastard?), _ she trusts Rex's judgment. He knows them better than she does, after all.

Cody and Jesse both refuse to leave Rex. She's not surprised.

“So- you and Rex,” Jesse says, after a few days.

Ahsoka raises an eyebrow. “What about us?”

“You're- together.”

“Yes,” she says, snorting. “We haven't exactly been _ hiding _ that, Jesse.”

“Took you long enough,” he mutters. “You know, Fives- and I used to have a bet about you two. I guess I won. First karking time ever,” and he swallows hard, his voice going raspy. “Not that it matters now.”

“It matters,” Ahsoka says, quietly, puts a hand on his shoulder. “How much did he owe you?”

Jesse shakes his head, coughs out a cracked laugh. “I don't even remember.”

She just hugs him, careful, because what else is there to say?

 

And life goes on. Nothing is perfect, of course, nothing can ever be as good as it was during the golden days, when they were all younger, before the Dark took over. But things are good, for the most part - Ahsoka helps Luke out at his new Jedi academy, and she and Rex, Cody, and Jesse look for _ vode _ (they don't find many - most are long dead), and it's, surprisingly, Cody who suggests they help out some of the stormtroopers who want it, who don't know what to do with their lives now that there's no Empire to serve.

In a way, the stormtroopers are worse off than the clones - they don't have names at all.

Nothing is  _ perfect, _ by any means, but she has her family with her, and that makes things better, easier. 

And maybe they'll get a happy-ever-after, after all.

_ Fin _


End file.
